It is told that the “Creative Destruction” principle which is often attributed to Nietzsche, is moved to German intellectual climate from the Eastern mysticism. . In Trimurti “the Hindu Trinity”, third face of God, Shiva represents both destructive and creative force. Nietzsche writes “If a temple is to be erected, a temple must be destroyed : That is the law”. In art, it is no different, and even it can be said that the “Creative Destruction” is the description and essence of the inner dialectics of art. The striking “deformation” in Barış Cihanoğlu’s new art exhibition requires a view exactly through the creative destruction perspective, equivalently a view through the history of art, and invites that view. The defiant law of art, works with all sincerity of its research in these paintings. Painting, which is an art of absolute form, can not be imagined without the distortion, or destruction of form; but with the same reason again, we can speak of a deformation which can persuade us with the distorted way it is and which informs us about the form, since the painting is an art of absolute form. Such a de-formation, with a high level of formation and re-formation emphasis, requires knowledge, courage, truth; otherwise it may be too awkward looking like smirking in the middle of the painting, or fall. Can we try to imagine, or visualize the artist walking forward in an imaginary darkness where he tries to hold on to form where no concepts illuminate? It is like opening the door to an unknown universe to discover its laws, diving into a wormhole. Barış Cihanoğlu, has opened us the gate of a universe running with different laws. If the consciousness of art, meets a piece of labor, will be excited with this universe and will ask questions to self about its laws, and insides.

“For years, mankind fills this void with images, provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fish, rooms, tools, stars, horses, people. Short before his death, he understands that the unflagging line maze composes the image of his own face”. We can not totally discover the cloudy motive and the impulse behind the art creation, but as the Borges tried to explain with these words, maybe Barış Cihanoğlu too is after the image of his own face, who knows. Collective family pictures; Puritan looking women posing with their children in their arms, fathers with ties, young men; little girls wearing wide, mostly white-collar dresses, aprons, and mothers… It is obvious that all these figures and affairs have a clear place in Cihanoğlu’s tale such as the rag doll which we have met in his previous works, big headed guy, primary school student etc. But with this series, the face deformation is included in the story. After a very successful exhibition where the personal style has proven itself, why didn’t Barış stop, where most people would, and why did he take such a risk I wonder? Finding the answer of this question which I think that it’s necessary to be asked because it’s important, is not that hard actually. Since the initial period, when you look carefully into his works, you understand how he simplifies an expressionist, sometimes “FOV” understanding in his journey where symbols, grotesque elements are intense. In his efficiency, the dynamism of the search can be seen.

In this exhibition, we see pictures belonging to a new era of his which we can characterize with a simple background, putting figure forward by deformed faces which every one of them remind of a mask, that he started with small circular canvases. In color, especially in background colors, there is a reduction, simplification which can be distinguished instantly. Such that in most pictures, figures are surrounded with gilding, or white. We can link the usage of gilding to gold leafs which we’re familiar with from illumination, or Byzantine mosaics, but the main thing here is, the simple background putting the figure forward without making too much contrast. In fact, with all the given facial expressions, or impressions of expressions, in some of the circular pictures which I call roughly as masks, the figure and the background are in such a harmony, such a venture that it is impossible to speak about a particular background in these pictures at all. In larger scaled paintings, where the deformations on the faces are advanced, there also is a composition between figures. In such a way, that will make us think that the deformation symbolizes the loss of innocence, infants, or small children who don’t even go to school are left outside the deformations, but still they’re depicted with their bib collars appearing on their necks like loops of rope, representing their dependence. The primary deformation on the figures, is observed as a longitudinal contractions at one direction on the faces. As if the contraction on the father figure is heavier. Men’s responsibilities supporting homes are heavy, all their heads are full of troubles and thoughts, and aching, swollen so much that it almost can’t be carried. It aches so much that the heads fall before and in the end, the eyes close. In the closed eyed figures, a sorrowful, yet rested expression can be read, like the masks of death. An expression just like the orgasm being named as a “little death” in some cultures. Are these people who forgot living in slog dead, or just let themselves to submission in the hands of an irresistible sorrow ?​We see a longitudinal but thin contraction on the women’s faces even spreading on their mouths, sometimes so much that they intertwine. As the head is contracted totally in adult males, in women, mostly eyes, mouth, cheeks and face is contracted. Sisters, brides, or maybe neighbors are contracted to each other through the faces with similar fates. These are almost similarized women, worn away during housework, child care, maybe neglect. On the other hand, despite being daunted, they look like they are willing to protect their beauty against the years, at any cost. It is obvious that they have so much to tell, so much to reprove with their half open lips, but they are speechless. They can not speak what they want; what fall to their share is, only wearingly monotonous cues, moanings and malicious criticisms. They are so speechless that in the family picture, the mouth and nose of a woman is covered with one or two thick brush strokes like a censoring band. There is an evil shadow, a stain behind this woman whose fearful eyes can be distinguished on her face only. Even though their hands are not holding a child, these women whose hands are as sorrowful as their eyes, hold their arms as if they’re holding a child and locked, cuffed in their bosoms mostly. The women pictured alone look like they are turning over something in they can’t solve in their heads, not knowing if it’s the complexity of an emotional affair or another distress. But all sad, all tangled.

The only deformed, pulled parts of the figures are their faces. And this inevitably leads us to think about the human face again: What is the symbolical meaning of the face? We confront all stimulants, shocks with our face, and then reflect them with our face. What the face can ask, where the perceptions, senses and expressions intense, and whose mystery is “intensity”, is more than what the tongue can ask. The face is an “idea”, and gets a share from “exalted”; when we say “let me see your face” it is beauty, and when we say “look at my face” or “he has no face to look at” it is personage and rightfulness. The faces depicted in Barış Cihanoğlu's paintings, can be deciphered in this symbolical level as the face being humane in the end I presume. It looks like as if Cihanoğlu wants to throw off all the masks on the gritty, pure faces which we see as the soul’s mirror ideally. But since the faces that wear death, disguised as life need no masks, in the name of exhibiting the truth or at least come to speech, it will be required that the faces which became masks to be torn apart themselves, not only the masks being dragged. So, in all this world’s darkness and mortal, endless distress, we can see the protagonist called “human” alone, kneeling down on his knees under the glamorous lights of the gilded stage of civilization. Is he challenging, or begging? Speaking, or delirious? Or is just silent and crying, moaning now and again quietly? In every case, he hides a Holbein medal behind his face quietly. Waiting in fear, and calling for his apocalypse in the times he can.